Sweet Thursday

32 Hazel’s Quest

Joe Elegant came cautiously back from his journey ready to take another one at a moment’s notice. He expected reprisals for Hazel’s costume, and there were no reprisals. In gratitude he made popovers at the Bear Flag three evenings in a row—and the girls didn’t even know what they were eating. He wanted to know what had happened but he was afraid to ask. Thus Joe Elegant was glad when Hazel called on him in his little lean-to in the rear of the Bear Flag.

“Sit here,” he said. “I’ll get you a piece of cake.”

While he was gone Hazel regarded the works of Henri the artist on the wall—one from the chicken-feather period and one from the later nutshell time. And he looked at the card table on which Joe Elegant worked at a portable typewriter. There was a neat pile of manuscript on the table, green paper typed with a green ribbon. A sheet of paper was in the machine. It began: “My dear Anthony West,[113] It was sweet of you—”

Joe came back with a wedge of cake and a glass of milk for Hazel, and while Hazel munched and drank, Joe’s large damp eyes bracketed him but never hit him.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

“What?”

“Why, your costume?”

“Fine, fine. Everybody was real surprised.”

“I’ll bet they were. Did Mack say anything?”

“He said I done fine. He almost cried.”

Joe Elegant smiled with quiet malice.

Hazel asked vacuously, “Say, what would you think was the matter with Doc?”

Joe crossed his legs professionally and his fingers rippled through the green-typed green pages. “It’s the whole and the part and the part is the whole,” he said.

“Come again?”

“It’s many things and one thing. Doc’s libido is driving him one way and his conscience is pulling him another. His myth is the sea, the wind, and the tide, and he relates to it by collecting animals. He carries his treasures to his laboratory. He wants to hide them and perhaps to place the dragon Fafnir[114] on guard.”

Hazel nearly said, “He sells them,” but that would have given him away as listening. “I knew a dame named Fafnir,” he said. “Bertha Fafnir. Third grade. Used to do pitchers of turkeys on the blackboard Thanksgiving. Had starched underskirts, they rustled kind of.”

Joe Elegant scowled faintly at the interruption. “Distill the myth and you get the symbol,” he went on. “The symbol is the paper he wants to write, but that in itself has impurities, needs distillation. Why? Because it is a substitute, that’s why. His symbol is false. That’s why he can’t write his paper. Frustration! He has taken the wrong path. And so he brings in false solutions. ‘I need a microscope,’ he says. ‘I need to go to La Jolla for the spring tides.’ He will not go to La Jolla. He will never write his paper.”

“Why not?”

“Wrong symbol. We must go back to the myth, the sea. The sea is his mother. His mother is dead but she is living. He is carrying treasures from his mother’s womb and trying to save them. Do you understand?”

“Sure,” said Hazel listlessly.

“He needs love. He needs understanding,” said Joe Elegant.

“Who don’t?” Hazel asked.

“I feel that I could help him if he would let me.”

“I kind of thought he’d took a shine to Suzy,” said Hazel.

Joe Elegant let a shadow of distaste tighten his mouth. “That would only be a new false path, a new frustration.”

Hazel observed, “Some people like one thing, some another.”

“Very original!” said Joe Elegant.

It was only a few steps from Joe Elegant’s lean-to through the kitchen to the Ready Room. In the Ready Room sat Becky with her feet up, reading her mail. Becky subscribed to “Pen Pals” and had a lively correspondence all over the world. The sheet of rice paper in her hands was from Japan. “Dear Pen Pal,” it began, “Your interest missive receipt. How gondola the Goldy State. Japan girl do hair-kink likewise, but not using blitch. My friend, Mitzi Mitzuki very West in minded. Would try if you mailing small little container hydrogen peroxide double pressure.”

“Hi!” said Hazel.

Becky laid down her letter. “Ever been to Japan?”

“Nope.”

“Me neither. How’s Mack?”

“Fine. Say, Becky, what would you say was the matter with Doc?”

“Love,” said Becky. “Doc’s aching away. Or if he ain’t, he ought to be. Nice fella like that.”

“He sets like he been pole-axed.”

“That’ll do it. Poor fella! If it was me, why, I’d go to him and I’d put my cool hand on his brow and I’d say, ‘Doc—’ ”

The door of Fauna’s room opened. “I thought I heard voices. Hello, Hazel. Ain’t none of the other girls around? Becky’s poorly.”

“I come to ask you something,” said Hazel.

“Well, come on in here. Set down. Want a snort? Is it private? I’ll shut the door.”

“Yes,” said Hazel, and that covered all the questions.

The snort brightened his eye. “What would you say was wrong with Doc?”

“I wouldn’t of said it a while ago,” said Fauna, “but when he put on that tie—and then, the other night—”

“Hell, he was drunk,” said Hazel. “A guy will say anything when he’s drunk.”

“No, he will not,” said Fauna.

“You think it’s Suzy?”

“Yes, sir! And if she wasn’t nuts, she could go to La Jolla with him and help him work. Why, hell! She’d be in.”

“He’s trying to write his paper.”

“He got himself all bollixed up,” said Fauna. “I bet he ain’t even thinking about his paper.”

“He ain’t thinking about nothing.”

“That’s what I mean. If he could stop not thinking about Suzy, why, he could start thinking about his paper. That’s my opinion anyway.”

“You think if she went to La Jolla—?”

“I do. But she won’t go.”

“He wouldn’t take her,” said Hazel.

“If everybody wasn’t such damn fools he wouldn’t get asked,” said Fauna. “I don’t know what we’re coming to. Have one more snort?”

“I can’t,” said Hazel, “I got to see a guy.”

It was only a coincidence that Joseph and Mary Rivas was also reading a letter when Hazel entered the grocery. Joseph and Mary was reading and cursing at the same time, cursing in obscure Spanish. The letter was from James Petrillo,[115] and it spoke in no uncertain terms. If the threat in the letter could be carried out, it looked as though what the U.S. government could not do in keeping wetbacks out, the musicians’ union could. The Patrón was in a stew. Ordinarily what he could not eliminate he joined. But Petrillo did not give him that choice. Joseph and Mary’s mind strayed toward assassination.

Hazel said, “How’re you?”

“Lousy!” said the Patrón.

“Ain’t nobody feeling too good,” Hazel observed. “Doc’s setting over there like he’s punch-drunk. What you think’s the matter with him?”

“Christ knows!” said the Patrón. “I got troubles of my own. Funny thing,” he said, “you know, last night I was coming home from Monterey, late, and there was a shadow up in the vacant lot. It moved into that bright spot the street light throws up by the boiler, and I swear to God it was Doc sneaking around up there.”

“No!” said Hazel.

“I say yes.” The Patrón looked over the vegetables and the piled canned goods and his eyes dwelt on the cardboard Coca-Cola girl in a swing. “Know something?” he said speculatively. “Before the party I would have said she was just one more tramp. Then she belted loose and moved into the boiler. And then, well—it looks like Doc seen something there. Maybe Suzy’s got something I missed. I been thinking I might just take a whack at her.”

“You can’t,” said Hazel. “She’s Doc’s.”

“Hell,” said the Patrón, “dames don’t belong to nobody. I might just whistle under her window.”

“She ain’t got no windows,” said Hazel.

The Patrón smiled. Petrillo’s poison was going out of him. “Yes, sir!” he said. “Maybe I missed something.”

“You stay away from her,” said Hazel.

Joseph and Mary drooped his eyes, and an Indian looked out for a second. Then he smiled again. “Have it your own way,” he said lightly. “I hear she’s got a job.”

This was the Golden Poppy: long, narrow, high-ceilinged; small octagonal tile on the floor; dark wood counter with small round stools; units at intervals on the counter—jukebox slot, paper-napkin holder, salt, pepper, sugar, mustard, catsup; rear door to the kitchen with window and service shelf; cash register at the front, cigarette machine beside the door; long mirror behind the counter fronted by coffeemaker, griddle, toasters, covered cakes and pies, stacked breakfast foods, doughnuts, rack of canned soup and soup heater, fight cards, movie schedule, bus timetable.

There was nothing to be done about the Golden Poppy. It was a dour and gloomy place dedicated to good coffee and sad, soggy food. It could not compete with the gay and phony little restaurants springing up in Monterey, with their checked tablecloths, showcard murals, low ceilings, and candles in cork floats.

The Golden Poppy did not try. There were many people who preferred it to the newcomers—customers who liked cold, damp doughnuts, stringy stews, and canned soup. These diners distrusted fishnets on the walls and jokes on the menu. To them food was a necessary but solemn sacrament about which there should be no nonsense.

The rush hours were seven to eight-thirty, breakfast; eleven-thirty to one-thirty, lunch; six to eight, dinner. In between these hours there were the coffee customers, the sandwich and doughnut people. In the evening came two rush times: at nine-thirty when the early movie let out, and at eleven-thirty when the second show broke. At twelve-thirty the Golden Poppy curled its petals, except on Saturday nights, when it stayed open until two for the early drunks.

The coming of Suzy to the Golden Poppy had a curious but reasonable effect on Ella. She had, over the years, maintained an iron interdict against weariness and pain. If she had allowed herself to realize how miserable she was she would have cut her throat.

Suzy did more than help, she took over: joked with the salesmen, whistled over the sandwich toaster, remembered that Mr. Garrigas like cream of celery soup and remembered his name too.

For a day or so Ella had watched Suzy and refused acidly when Suzy suggested that she go home and lie down for a couple of hours. Then her interdict cracked, and the crack widened. Abysmal fatigue, aching legs, and abdominal pains crept through. Ella was an exhausted woman when she came at last to admit it. Going home to lie down for an hour was first a sin, and then a luxury, and finally a drug.

Now when Suzy said after the nine-thirty rush, “Go on home and get a good night’s sleep,” it seemed perfectly natural. Not only could Suzy hold the fort, but her terse, professional gaiety was drawing in new customers.

At eleven-fifteen Suzy had the four Silexes filled with fresh coffee, the hamburgers between waxed paper in the icebox, the tomatoes sliced, and the sandwich bread in the drawer below the griddle. At eleven-thirty the customers came in a rush from the second show.

Suzy grew six extra hands: club sandwiches, melted cheese sandwiches, cheeseburgers, and coffee, coffee, coffee! The cash register jangled and the change appeared standing up between the tits of the rubber mat.

“How’s about a date Saturday?”

“Sure! Love to.”

“Is it a date?”

“Can my husband come?”

“You married?”

“I won’t be if I keep that date.”

“You’re a swell-looking kid.”

“You’re kind of pretty yourself. Here’s your change.”

“Keep it.”

“Thanks. Cheeseburger coming up. Sorry, eighty-six on the tuna fish sandwiches.”

In the seconds between orders, three of her extra hands carried dishes into the soapy water, rinsed and dried them.

“Hey! Mr. Gelthain, you forgot your umbrella!”

“So I did. Thank you.” That would be another quarter tip, and the quarter went into a slotted can marked “Joe.”

Every morning when Joe Blaikey came in for his coffee a little pile of silver was put before him and checked in the account book. It was amazing how it added up.

At five minutes of twelve Hazel came in and waited against the wall until a stool was vacant.

“Hi, Hazel. What’ll it be?”

“Cup of coffee.”

“It’s on the house, Hazel. How you been?”

“Okay.”

Gradually the customers thinned out and then were gone. Suzy’s flashing hands put the Golden Poppy to bed: scrubbed the grill, washed down the counter, wiped the necks of the catsup bottles. She looked up to see Hazel sweeping out.

“Say, what the hell are you doing?”

“I figured we’re both going the same way. I’ll walk with you.”

“Why not?” said Suzy. “You can carry my books.”

“What?”

“Just a joke.”

“Ha, ha!” said Hazel seriously.

They walked down Alvarado Street, all closed up except where the bars splashed neon culture on the sidewalk. At the tip of the Presidio they stopped and leaned their elbows on the iron railing and looked at the fishing boats in the black water of the bay. They crossed the tracks, went past the Army ware house, and entered the upper end of Cannery Row. And at last Hazel said, “You’re a swell dame.”

“Come again?”

“Say, what you think’s the matter with Doc?”

“How would I know?”

“You sore at him?”

“How’d you like to mind your own business?”

“It’s all right,” said Hazel quickly. “I ain’t bright. Everybody knows that.”

“What’s that got to do with keeping out of my hair?”

“Nobody pays no attention to me,” said Hazel. He offered this as a recommendation. “Doc says I don’t listen. He likes that.”

They walked on in silence for a while. Then Hazel said timidly, “He done everything in the world for me. Once he went character witness for me and I ain’t got no character. Once I’d of lost a foot, but he opened her up and shook powder on her and I still got her.”

Suzy didn’t answer. Their footsteps were loud on the pavement and echoed back from the iron fronts of dead canneries.

“Doc’s in trouble,” Hazel said.

Their footsteps filled the street.

“Anybody in trouble, why, they go to Doc. Nobody goes to him now he’s in trouble.”

Step, step, step.

“I got to help him,” said Hazel. “But I ain’t bright.”

“What the hell do you want me to do?” said Suzy.

“Well, couldn’t you go over and set with him?”

“No.”

“If you was in trouble he’d help you.”

“I ain’t in trouble. How do you know he’s in trouble?”

“I’m telling you. I thought you liked him.”

“I like him all right. If he was in real trouble like if he was sick or bust his leg, I’d probably take him some soup.”

“Jeeze! If he bust his leg he couldn’t go to the spring tides,” said Hazel.

“Well, he ain’t busted his leg.”

They passed Wide Ida’s. Hazel asked, “You want a beer?”

“No, thanks.” Then she said, “Ain’t you going up to the Palace?”

“No,” said Hazel, “I got to see a guy.”

Suzy said, “Once, when I was a kid, I made an ashtray for my old man and old lady—”

“They like it?”

“They didn’t need no ashtray.”

“Didn’t they smoke?”

“Yes,” said Suzy. “Good night.”

Hazel was approaching a state of collapse. In his whole life he had never sustained a thought for more than two minutes. Now his resources reeled under the strain of four hours of concentration. And it was not yet over. He had to make two more visits, and then he had to retire under the black cypress tree to sift his findings. So far he could see no light anywhere. His mental pictures were like those children’s kaleidoscopes that change color and design as they are turned. It seemed to Hazel that a slight zizzing sound came from his brain.

It was a catty night. Big toms crept about, their heads and shoulders flattened to the ground, seeking other toms. Lady cats preened themselves in sweet innocence, unaware of what they hoped was likely to happen to them. On the rocks off Hopkins Marine Station[116] the sea lions barked with a houndish quaver. The silver canneries were silent under the street lights. And from somewhere on the beach Cacahuete Rivas’s trumpet softly mourned the “Memphis Blues.”[117]

Hazel had stopped for a moment in appreciation of the secret night. He looked up at the boiler where Suzy had gone, and into the streak of street light he saw a figure move. From the shape and posture he thought it must be the Patrón. In a way it was none of Hazel’s business. He walked up the stairs and knocked on the door of Western Biological.

Doc sat on his bed regarding a heap of collecting paraphernalia: nets, buckets and jars, formaldehyde and Epsom salts and menthol, rubber boots and rubber gloves, glass plates and string. On his table stood a small new traveling aquarium with a tiny pump and motor run by two dry cells. Morosely he watched the mist of white air bubbles sift through the sea water.

“Come in,” he said to Hazel. “I’m glad to see you.”

“Just come to pass the time of day,” said Hazel.

“Good. I’m glad. A man feels silly talking to himself, and at the same time it’s private. You’re the perfect answer, Hazel.”

“Say, Doc, I just remembered. What’s ass-astro-physic?”

“You don’t really want me to tell you, do you?”

“Not very much. I just wondered. I signed up for it.”

Doc shuddered. “I don’t think I want to hear about that,” he said.

“I brang you a pint.”

“That’s friendly of you. Will you join me?”

“Sure,” said Hazel. “You’re really going to La Jolla, huh?”

“Well, I guess I have to. That’s one of the things I’ve been trying to figure out. I’ve made such a stink about it.”

“Lot of people think you won’t go.”

“Well, that’s one of the reasons I have to.”

“Don’t you want to?”

“I don’t know,” said Doc softly.

He got up from the bed and disengaged a wire from the dry cell. “No point in wasting juice,” he said. “I’ve been tearing myself down like a Model T Ford in a backyard. Got the pieces all laid out. Still don’t know why it won’t run. Don’t even know whether I can get it together again.”

“I could help,” said Hazel. “I know about Model T’s.”

“It might turn out you know about people too,” said Doc.

Hazel looked shyly down at his feet. No one had ever accused him of knowing anything before.

Doc chuckled, “That’s my good Hazel!”

“Say, Doc, what you think is the matter with you?” Hazel was appalled at his daring, but he had asked. And Doc seemed to find the question reasonable.

“God knows,” he said. “Some kind of obscure self-justification, I guess. I wanted to make a contribution to learning. Maybe that was a substitution for fathering children. Right now, my contribution, even if it came off, seems kind of weak. I think maybe I’ve talked myself into something, and now maybe I have to do it.”

Hazel groped among his bits and pieces. “Mack’s sorry about what him and Fauna done. He’s just sick.”

“He shouldn’t be,” said Doc. “I’m the one who messed it up.”

“You mean you would of took Suzy on?”

“I guess so. I’ve thought about it ever since. For a couple of days there I felt different and better than I ever have in my life. A kind of built-in pain was gone. I felt wide open.”

“About Suzy?”

“I guess so. I’m supposed to have this wild free brain without conventional barriers. And what did I do? I balanced a nasty ledger. I weighed education, experience, background, even probable bloodlines. Some of the worst people I ever knew had the best of all those. Well, there it is. Saying it has made it even clearer. I guess I’ve thrown it away.”

“Why don’t you give it one more try, Doc?”

“How?”

“Why don’t you take a candy bar or a bunch of carnations and knock on her door?”

“Right from the beginning, huh? Sounds kind of silly.”

“Well, dames is all dames,” said Hazel.

“You may have made a discovery. Have you seen her?”

“Yeah. She got that boiler fixed up real pretty. She got a job down at the Golden Poppy.”

“How is she? What did she say?”

Hazel cast about again among his broken pieces. Her vehemence came back to him. “When she was a kid she made an ashtray for her papa and mama—” Hazel let it hang there because it sounded ridiculous.

“Well, what about it?”

“They didn’t need no ashtray,” said Hazel.

“She told you that?”

“Yep.”

“Let’s have a drink.”

“I can’t, Doc. I got one more—I mean, I got to see a guy.”

“This late at night?”

“Yeah.” And then Hazel confessed. “You been good to me, Doc. I wouldn’t do no bad thing to you.”

“Of course you wouldn’t.”

“But I done it.”

“What!”

“Remember you always said you liked me ’cause I didn’t listen?”

“Sure I remember.”

Hazel’s eyes were shy and ashamed. “I listened,” he said.

“That’s all right.”

“Doc—”

“Yes?”

“Joseph and Mary’s hanging around the boiler.”

Hazel couldn’t remember ever having been so tired. He had put his mind to unaccustomed tricks, and it was just as he had been afraid it would be. He had got nothing. He had started out hoping to find some kind of light to guide him. What he had got reminded him of Henri’s painting in nutshells. He wanted to sleep a long time, perhaps never to awaken to a world in which he now felt himself a stranger. He had made a mess of it. He wondered if he would make as bad a mess in Washington.

He walked wearily through the vacant lot and up the chicken walk to the Palace Flop house. He wanted to slip into bed in the dark and hide his failure in sleep.

Mack and the boys were waiting up for him.

“Where the hell you been?” said Mack. “We looked all over for you.”

“Just walking around,” said Hazel listlessly.

Mack moved and groaned. “Jesus! You hit me a crack,” he said. “Damn near killed me.”

“I shouldn’t of did it,” said Hazel. “You want I should rub it?”

“Hell no! What you been up to? When you get making plans, the sky is falling on my tail, said Henny Penny.”[118]

Whitey No. 2 asked, “Who you been with?”

“Everybody. Just walking around.”

“Well, who?”

“Oh, Joe Elegant and Fauna and Suzy and Doc.”

“You seen Suzy?” Mack demanded.

“Sure. Went down to the Poppy for a cup of coffee.”

“Look who’s buying coffee!”

“It was on the house,” said Hazel.

“Well, what did she say?”

“She says in the third grade she made an ashtray.”

“Oh, Jesus!” said Mack. “Did she say anything about Doc?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“You guess so!”

“Don’t ask me if you’re going to be mean to me. That’ll just get me mean.”

Mack shifted painfully to his other buttock.

Hazel felt ringed with hostility. “I guess I’ll go outside,” he said miserably.

“Wait! What’d she say about Doc?”

“Said she didn’t want no part of him, except—I’m going to go on out.”

“Except what?”

“Except he got sick or bust a leg.”

Mack shook his head. “Sometimes you get me thinking the way you do. God Almighty! I shouldn’t of let you out alone.”

“I didn’t do no harm.”

“I bet you didn’t do no good either. I bet right now you’re trying to figure out germ warfare—how to get Doc sick.”

“I’m tired,” said Hazel. “I just want to go to bed.”

“Who’s stopping you?”

Hazel didn’t even take off his clothes before he went to bed, but he didn’t sleep either; at least not until the dawn crept out from Salinas. His brain was blistered and his responsibility rode him with surcingle and spurs.